Jerry Douglas was effusive and ebullient all afternoon. He and his band approached their soundcheck session with a mixture of patience, focus and glee; it was the warmup for their first performance in front of a live audience in over a year. After sitting out the pandemic for all that time, the main hurdle to their exercise in knocking the rust off seemed to be finding what gear was in which bin, serving only to slightly delay them in getting things back into fifth gear. Jerry’s energy and enthusiasm continued afterwards, when he spoke about everything from his latest album project with John Hiatt to his analogy of the cyclical nature of musical tastes, which gave us the title to this episode.

The Jerry Douglas Band performs at Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre in Asheville, NC 06-03-21

Joe Kendrick and Jerry Douglas on stage at Pisgah Brewing in Black Mountain, NC 08-25-18

Songs heard in this episode:

“From Ankara to Izmir” by The Jerry Douglas Band, performed live 06-03-21 at Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre, Asheville, NC

“All The Lilacs In Ohio” by John Hiatt with The Jerry Douglas Band, from Leftover Feelings, excerpt

“Touch and Go” by Sean Jones from No Need For Words, excerpt

Thank you for stopping by. We hope you enjoyed the podcast, and might tell someone you know about it. You can follow the series on podcast platforms everywhere. Currently Southern Songs and Stories is ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts, which is great! But for this endeavor to be self-supporting, we ask that you follow the series and then give us a top rating and a review on your platform of choice. It is all free, and doing this will make all of the topics and artists covered on this series more likely to be found by more people just like you. Southern Songs and Stories is a part of the podcast lineup of both public radio WNCW and Osiris Media, with all of the Osiris shows available here. You can also hear new episodes of this podcast on Bluegrass Planet Radio here. Thanks to Sean Rubin for recording and mixing The Jerry Douglas Band’s live performance of “From Ankara to Izmir”, and to Corrie Askew for producing the radio adaptations of this series on public radio WNCW, where we worked with Joshua Meng, who wrote and performed our theme songs. - Joe Kendrick

Artist stereotypes do not apply

How many times have parents cringed when their children fell in love with a musician? Let's be honest, the world has looked askance at artists of all stripes (with notable exceptions) for most of our history. Musicians tend to be thought of as people who may be great at their art but who are nonetheless pretty bad at life skills like paying bills, getting to work on time, and sticking with the missus.

Aaron turns all those stereotypes on their head; he is not only a fantastic songwriter and musician, but he also runs his own construction business and is a devoted family man living a stone's throw from where he grew up in the western NC mountains. He is as meticulous and intense about his guitar and ballads as he is about his green built homes and raising his two girls.

As you'll see in our pilot episode, Aaron does both life and art exceptionally well. The folks around him are a big part of that.